Jae's Grill

Chung courts the green-trousers set

by Robert Nadeau

DINING OUT

Jae's Grill 1223 Beacon Street, Brookline Open daily for lunch, 11:30 a.m.-4:30 p.m., and for dinner, 5-10:30 p.m. AE, Visa, MC, DC Full bar (617) 739-0000 Accessible

This space used to be occupied by Providence, the first big restaurant to open after the Massachusetts Un-Miracle recession of the late 1980s. Before that, it was a Greek restaurant called Columns, a Chinese restaurant called Yen-King, and a couple of other things, going all the way back to the days when it was the Edwardian lobby of a hotel. The elaborate decor is too good to hide, and probably too well-built to remove (that certainly seems to be the case with the Corinthian columns, which don't quite work in any restaurant). Now comes Boston's master recycler, Jae Chung, who previously had never seen a restaurant space that wouldn't work better with pan-Asian fusion food. Chung must have looked up and down Beacon Street, eyeing Chef Chow's and Ginza and Fugakyu and Bangkok Basil, and decided that what Brookline needs now is . . . Anglo food.

I won't say that the new Jae's Grill is like a country-club dining room with sashimi, but he has gone to a menu of steaks, chops, chicken, and seafood with rather bland sauces and a lot of potatoes. Guys in chartreuse pants will be okay here. In fact, if you are the multi-pierced niece of a guy in chartreuse pants, you'll be okay too. But you will be ordering appetizers, while Uncle Bob will be having a shrimp cocktail and his pick of "Kinnealey's Prime Meats" and "Foley's Fresh Seafood." Chung seems to have decided that Brookline customers are like the people he used to serve as a Ritz-Carlton waiter and bartender, only less so.

One appetizer we can all agree on is raw oysters ($1.60 each), of which Jae's features several kinds. We ordered a mixture of what sounded -- since our waitress was from southern Ireland -- like "Whalebacks" and "Evening Colts." I eventually decided that "Whalebacks" were Malpeques, an oyster with a creamy texture and rich flavor that brings out the nuances of oak-aged wines. "Evening Colts" (Chincoteagues?) were leaner with a metallic flavor that some call "coppery," a trait I like in our Wellfleet oysters. Try some of each, and then order more of your favorite.

Fried calamari with pea greens and parmesan cheese ($6.95) makes a nice salad, if you can handle the large dose of pepper in the dressing. Someone here has a Korean palate. But "grilled hamachi kama (yellowtail cheeks)" ($7.95) is not as Asian as it sounds -- it's a rather mild piece of fish, not gelatinous, in an unobtrusive teriyaki marinade. The bread basket is literally a basket, carried around by the waiter as they do at the Federalist, and includes sweet whole-grain slices and what I would call Italian bread.

Now over to Uncle Bob. Adjuma's meat loaf ($12.95) sounds like something with Korean influences, but mine was a glorified diner meat loaf, probably with some veal and pork, in a couple of big slices on the obligatory mashed potatoes and green beans. "Long Island Duck Breast and Leg with sweet potato risotto and golden raisin sauce" ($19.95) shows both the increasing atomization of menu descriptions and the continuing ignorance of the compound-adjective rule. Taking into account the simultaneous comma shortage, I guess my next rubber-chicken dinner will be "Maryland Battery Chicken Breast, Two-Bone Wing Segment, Drumstick-like Wing Segment, Drumstick, and Thigh with can gravy, lettuce tomato onion vinaigrette salad mashed potatoes and cranberry." No rubber duck here, however. Your investment assures lean slices of medium-rare breast meat and a kind of braised leg with some real duck flavor. I would identify the side dishes as a sweet risotto (rice with sweet-potato flavor), and a sweet-sour sauce (raisins included).

Uncle Bob is visiting and isn't sure about the "2lb lobster with ginger lime and white wine sauce" (market price; ours was $25.95)? He should go right ahead. The lobster meat is removed from the shell (the old New England "lazy lobster") and served in a light, creamy sauce without obtrusive flavors -- oh, maybe a little lime. The baby vegetables on this platter are very nice, too -- white beets, carrots, green beans.

Jae's Grill offers the steakhouse feature of side orders of vegetables to accompany entrées lacking a starch or vegetable (though most have one or the other). Fresh creamed spinach ($4.25) was light on cream and strong on freshness, as I hoped. Sautéed seasonal mushrooms ($4.95) were the cultured wild mushrooms that are always in season, appropriately emphasizing shiitake and baby bella. One must note, however, that this rainy summer has been the best (true) wild mushroom season in more than 25 years.

The wine list is pretty good, an encouragement to try the little bar in front. I don't think the steakhouse theme has quite reached the wine buyer, however; spicy whites (to go with Asian food) are the strength of the list. On our night they were out of Robert Pecota sauvignon blanc, but substituted a Brancroft "Marlborough" sauvignon blanc from New Zealand ($25) -- my first taste of the 2000 vintage. Last spring they harvested some pretty good grapes in New Zealand, but I think I will wait until 2001 to taste more of them.

Desserts have fun names, like "Deep Dark Raspberry Fudge Cake" ($6) and "Sinful Brownie Sundae" ($6). The cake is deep and dark as described, the brownie sundae sinful only to calorie counters -- it won't really challenge your moral compass. Lemon cake ($6) was a heavy cake, like a carrot cake, strong on the buttercream filling, which evoked the old Ritz-Carlton, where quality often meant butter.

Service at Jae's Grill is well-paced, accurate, and attentive. Our waitress may sometimes have been unclear on oyster names, but she knew which oyster was which -- the important information when we wanted four more "Evening Colts."

The background music is jazz, and the redecoration is "jazz at the Philharmonic" -- the columns are there, the curtains are there, and so are salt-water aquariums, granite tabletops, blue goblets, and similarly mod stuff. The aura of the old hotel lingers in the sense that Jae's Grill is trying to be all things to all customers. There's no doubt he was thinking about the Ritz, but he makes me think about a young Korean-American art-school graduate working at the Ritz -- wanting to express himself but also buying in to the doctrine of customer service. Memo to Jae Chung: we love you as you are. Swing with it.

Robert Nadeau can be reached at robtnadeau@aol.com.

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